Quick thoughts on "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" by Aimee Bender

Could have been in the sci fi section. Very readable and weird. I liked it.

The main character, Rose, can taste people's feelings through cake. She has a father who avoids hospitals and a very strange brother. It's a bit hard to follow if you can't suspend your disbelief a bit, probably.

Very nice, very quick. Might read her other book.

Tad Williams "The Dragonbone Chair"

Long.
Epic.

Decent fantasy read for the summer. Working on book 2 now. Some characters are less interesting to me than others. More Simon, less everyone else please :)

Dogs up in my face

Finally this weekend Hana had enough attention, and went and lay in her donut bed. She used to never want to touch us, and she would lie 5-8 feet away at all times on the carpet somewhere, although she'd throw a fit if she couldn't see us.

These past couple of weeks whenever I'm sitting, she tries to jump up and then she sits on me. Or stands on me. Or once, crawls up my shoulder and tries to sit on that (21 pound dog, shoulder does not work). Its very cute, but its been a bit warm out and I'm unhappy with it.

This week she finally had enough. But apparently Kiba has been feeling neglected, because he has been laying next to me on the couch for periods of time greater than 5 seconds (he cannot hold still normally).

I cannot win! Dogs in the face!

Mini Geeky thoughts: Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth

What fun!
Lots of suspense, and the vampires don't want to have sex with the food (refreshing ;) ).

If you are teenage girl who loves vampires, you probably won't like this book, for that reason. Which is a good thing. Vampires have been destroyed these days. Sigh!

Good read, lots of fun and suspense and people dying, and there's even some other undead.

Old Game Review Haiku: Tales of Vesperia

Could not stop cooking.
Had to cheat for recipe tips.
Oh JRPGs.

Seriously though, I thought of it today, played it over a year ago, and miss that shiny pretty animation.

So sweet!

Quick thoughts on a book: The Other Boleyn Girl (Philippa Gregory)

Fun, scandalous. A lot more about Anne Boleyn than I ever needed to think about, and her sister Mary is made much more likeable through this particular historical fiction.

Good summer reading! But a bit scandalous.

Geeky quick review? Robin Hobb's Dragon Keeper

Disgusting dragons? Who'd have thought.
Waiting to see what happens to the humans who have been mutating, and to see if the dragons ever grow enough to do what dragons should do.

Fairly exciting, a little confusing. Fun fantasy read.

The heights... peter hedges

Fun and easy read. Wish I weren't so busy in life that I couldn't say more... the love story is quite touching :).

It's not sci fi, but we can't all be perfect!

Dead until Dark

Ok I gave in. The first book covered pretty much the first season. There was a lot of extra crap, and now I know why the storyline felt a little hollow in places. The book is readable, but it's first person.

I've reserved the next 2 at the library. Definitely a fun read!

Rereading some Jacquiline Carey books

Forgot how much fun the whole Kushiel's series is. I'm out of office because of a cold that mainly manifests itself as me not being able to talk, although today I think I must be getting better, because this morning I coughed up some really awesome goo...

Aside from that, I'm reading... and reading... and reading. Yay!

If you like swords and sorcery, or politics and intrigue, or a bit of naughtiness in your sf/fantasy novels, then probably check these out. In order! I liked them enough to start buying new ones in hardback as they came out... and I'm waiting for another in the 3rd trilogy.

Book: Solar by Ian McEwan

A very unlikeable main character, however, I was able to be happy that the main character was also unliked by the author.

A little slow in parts, where Beard isn't being cheated on, stealing, or killing maybe, and a couple of nice side stories. He bumbles along, trying to do nothing, and bad stuff happens a lot. Through it all life isn't so bad for him, he eats and eats and lazes about, and does very little.

I really wished he would have had one particular success - the novel feels a bit incomplete as is.

Ah well. An entertaining read.

Geeky Review: farenheight 451

Hm wow. What an odd book. So much description, so much caution with words. The character starts out from nothing and becomes something.
Of course everyone is aware of the plot, etc, but looking at the society every few years would prove interesting - what is close to our society, what is not? Where do we seem to be heading in the direction of firemen?

Quickest read ever, and I only read it because I never had before, but now I think I'll take a look at it every 10 years or so. Have you not read this in 10 years? Try it out!

Review: Spooner by Pete Dexter

I took a break from nonfiction since this was on my wait list at the library, and it recently came through.

The thing that stayed in my mind the most was the obvious relationship with dogs.
Spooner isn't smart. He's not even bright in some way. Everything he tries seems to mess up, although more in a sad way than a funny way.
There's a little puppy, who Spooner as a small (between the ages of 4-10) child terrorizes. There's the family dog moving to suburbia. There's Spooner's old dog, and there's Spooner's neighbor's dog. They all sound perfectly doggy. Perhaps its because I'm a dog lover, but Spooner is at his best with dogs. He's more human as a character when with dogs, instead of as a target for author sadism.

Perhaps everything is about the floating dead, and not dogs at all.
Perhaps its about marriage. Or parents. Or about just living.

Comedy and tragedy at every other moment, but no LOLs from me, just some ironic "HA!"s.

Largely I read fiction books as I look at art. At the end, there's a painting, and how do I feel? This one made me feel like my life cannot possibly suck more than this guy's, and it made me hug my dogs.

It's very readable, I'd recommend trying it out. You'll at least make it to the parts about shampoo and shoe-pissing-in with a smile.

Geeky Review: The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel

A disclaimer before I review non-fiction: I am generally biased against non-fiction because I find most of it hard to read, but I like stories.

This book started out telling me about the mid-end of this book. What do you mean, this man can't stop picturing himself shooting people in the head? What do you mean, he's lost all hope? This book was obviously written by someone who knows how to keep his audience wanting to read. I kept waiting and waiting to hear about the dog mentioned on the first page.

Despite reading the beginning, I got attached to the soldiers. Perhaps because the author isn't too cruel, I didn't get too attached to the soldiers that died, but I grew to like Kauzlarich. I nervously read faster and faster ever time bombs started going off. I nodded my head in sympathy at times.

And yet, distance is maintained. I became attached to the characters, but never became the characters. I enjoyed the read a lot, but I didn't become completely absorbed.

Ah, the difficulties of reading non-fiction. Nonetheless I think fiction readers could read this!